The Valley of Adventure

The Valley of Adventure by Enid Blyton is a stranded in the wild story for 9 year olds that starts with four children getting into the wrong aeroplane in the dark.

What happens

Before that, there is a parrot in a sulk.

Kiki has been left alone all day and she is not having it. She does her impression of an express train going into a tunnel. She tells Mrs Mannering off for not shutting the door. She has picked up half of Ding Dong Bell from the child next door and repeats it mournfully at everybody.

Then the children come crashing in, pink with excitement. Their friend Bill has taken them up in his new aeroplane and they have seen the clouds from above.

Naturally they now want more. Bill has said night flying is the best of all, with pinpricks of light coming up from the dark countryside, so they beg for a night flight to his house in the country.

Mrs Mannering says yes, as long as nobody goes headlong into another awful adventure. The children promise. Their mother stands at the door as the taxi pulls away and says she has an uncomfortable feeling about it.

The packing takes ages and is somehow lovely. Rugs as good as two blankets. Sandwiches and cake because they will be up all night. Sunflower seeds for Kiki and a basket with a lid she will only go into at the last possible moment.

Then the aerodrome at ten at night, the flare path lit up, planes enormous in the shadows on either side. Bill is deep in conversation with three or four men and waves them off to wait at the aeroplane.

You know exactly what is about to go wrong and Blyton takes her time letting it.

What your reader gets afterwards is the good stuff. Children a very long way from anyone, two men who are not Bill, a hidden valley, and something in it worth a great deal of trouble.

Philip and Dinah squabble more or less continuously, mostly about the animals Philip keeps in his pockets. Jack notices birds. Lucy-Ann is the youngest and the bravest about admitting she is frightened, which is a nicer thing to read than it sounds.

Fair warning that the first two chapters are almost entirely talking and packing. A child who reads for atmosphere will be perfectly happy. One who wants the plane in the air by page ten may need a nudge to keep going.

What to read next

These four have had adventures before and they get mentioned a lot. The first is The Island of Adventure, with old copper mines, tunnels under the sea and the cliff top house they used to live in.